


brick by brick

by towine (blacktreecle)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, Very Minor Spoilers for KH3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 06:16:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17761382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktreecle/pseuds/towine
Summary: While Yuffie waits for Sora’s return to Radiant Garden, she fights, mopes, eats, fights again, and makes some new friends along the way.





	brick by brick

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is a love letter to myself from 14 years ago, who constantly fixated on yuffie + the radiant garden crew out of all the kingdom hearts characters haha. which means the audience for this fic is probably composed of me, myself, and i. but on the chance that someone else out there loves them as much as i do, i hope you enjoy this!
> 
> this fic relies on a couple things:
> 
> 1) the assumption that at least a few months passed between KH2 and KH3 and
> 
> 2) **a minor, non-plot KH3 spoiler:** the radiant garden folks (besides ienzo and co.) do not show up in KH3. because i love them so much i was pretty sad about this (though i loved the game regardless!) and thus this fic was born
> 
> hopefully there will be more KH fics after this one! i just had to get this extremely self-indulgent one out first :')
> 
> ALSO, big thanks to artenon for the beta, i love you <3

Yuffie’s seen Sora’s gummi ship zip off into space dozens of times. It always returns a handful of weeks later looking slightly worse for wear, but Sora, Donald, and Goofy bound out of it with the same smiles as the last time she saw them.

When Sora leaves for Twilight Town with a new lead on Organization XIII, she doesn’t think anything different of it. The gummi ship’s engine roars to life, Sora gives a barely visible wave through the window of the cockpit, and its gaudy red and yellow shape shoots into the sky until its jet trails dissipate with the clouds and the ship itself shrinks into a speck Yuffie’s eyes can’t track anymore.

Then Sora doesn’t come back next week.

Or the week after that. Or the week after that.

She doesn’t usually hold on to nervousness for long, but this time it sits queasily in the pit of her stomach, like that questionable ice cream Scrooge used to experiment on.

When she brings it up with the others, all she gets in return is Cid grumbling, “That kid’s got no end of bad business to deal with so stop your bellyachin’.”

He rubs a hand over his tired eyes as he squints at the lines of the Claymore’s code in front of him. Yuffie’d make a joke about adding wrinkles to his wrinkles but the worry in her stomach is eating at her attention more than Cid’s complexion.

“Yeah but he’s not normally gone this long,” she says from where she’s sprawled out on Merlin’s armchair. “If he’s got ‘bad business,’ don’t you think he’d ask us for help by now?”

“Keyblade wielders have an entirely different level of responsibility than we do.” Squall stops in the middle of polishing his gunblade at the table to level a look at her that she recognizes as Squall Frown #26—the one he uses when he tries to explain something to her that he knows she isn’t gonna like. “There are some things even we can’t help him with. The best thing we can do is focus on keeping Radiant Garden safe for when he comes back.”

“He will, right? Come back, I mean.” Uncertainty makes her sound younger and she hates it.

“When has Sora disappointed us before?” Aerith appears with a tray of iced tea and holds one out to her. She wants to pout some more but Aerith’s smile is too nice and she put extra sugar in the tea like Yuffie always asks her to and she can’t stay mopey in the face of all that.

She downs the tea in one loud slurp then slams the empty glass on the table, ignoring Squall’s grimace at her manners.

“Right.” She nods firmly and picks up her shuriken from where it leans against the table. “Let’s go clear the Bailey, Squall!”

“It’s Leon,” comes his typical response, but he rises from his chair and follows her towards the door.

“Let us know if you hear anything new.” She waves over her shoulder at Aerith and Cid.

“Don’t worry.” Cid gives a gruff smile around the toothpick between his teeth. “Old Cid’s always got an ear out for those three clowns.”

Yuffie laughs at that, and she thinks she even sees Squall crack the tiniest of smiles, too.

* * *

Hero work hadn’t really been a concern for her since she was a kid running around the old Radiant Garden, snatching bugs out of the corners of the room whenever Aerith asked her to. Tossing cockroaches outside wouldn’t really seem like hero work to anyone else, but the way Aerith applauded and hugged her and said, “You’re my hero, Yuffie, that bug was so icky,” made Yuffie feel like she was on top of the world. Even if her throwing stars were blunt and made of plastic and her only targets were the logs of wood in her backyard (and sometimes the back of Squall’s head), she felt like she could take on anything.

Then the Heartless came.

They devoured Radiant Garden from the inside out and she was too young and afraid to do anything at all.

Squall started going around calling himself Leon and skulked through Traverse Town’s alleys looking all guilty, Aerith cried when she thought no one was looking, and Cloud straight up disappeared. And it wasn’t fair because none of them were at fault, Yuffie knew that, and yet she couldn’t help feeling like she failed her home world somehow.

It wasn’t until she watched Sora take down Ansem that she realized what a real hero looked like. He was just a kid, with a dog and a duck helping him, of all people. And they were heroes.

Maybe she was a little jealous. She was more preoccupied with restoring her home world than unpacking that particular box of feelings, but it was like something Aerith told her the first time Yuffie tried (and failed) to fight Heartless on her own.

She said, “Sometimes there are things that have to be left to people more capable than yourself.”

It took meeting Sora for Yuffie to learn to accept that. It was like she was finally becoming an adult or something, even though coffee still tastes gross to her and she doesn’t understand how Squall drinks it every day.

But if it’s Sora’s job to save the worlds and stop Kingdom Hearts from unleashing doom upon them all, then Yuffie’s must be to take care of the Heartless still lurking in Radiant Garden’s shadows. Just like the roaches.

“Yuffie, above you!”

Squall shouts just in time for her to see scaffolding giving away overhead. She rolls out of the way, metal and concrete crashing down where she once stood, and she looses her shuriken at the Yellow Operas zapping at the ropes holding the construction aloft.

“Stop it!” She hurls her throwing stars with increasing annoyance. “We’ve been working on that wall for weeks!”

The Heartless disappear in fizzes of black smoke until the town square is finally clear.

“Man.” Yuffie cranes her neck to look at the crumbling wall, barely held together by metal beams and nails. “The construction crew’s not gonna like this.”

“We should keep a closer watch of this area. I’ll tell Cid to adjust the Claymore’s parameters,” Squall says as he examines the damage one of the Large Bodies did to a fountain.

She walks over to him, kicking debris aside as she does. “Do you think we can get the fountains working soon? Aerith says the Fountain Court was really pretty but I don’t really remember it.”

“We have to prioritize other things first.” He frowns at her.

“Ah,” she says, “number fourteen.” The _Yuffie we’ve got more important things to do than (insert frivolous task here)_ frown. Classic.

“What?”

“Nothing!” She prances away. “You know what? We’ve made a lot of progress though. I can run around here without constantly stepping on Heartless poop.”

“Heartless don’t poop, Yuffie.”

“No, no, the Heartless _are_ the poop, you see? Also, I just made you say the word poop.”

“I think it’s time to head back now.” He tugs at one of the loose ends of her headband.

“Hey!” She bats his hand away. “Fine. But I’m just saying, the town square would look better with the fountains on.”

“I’ll ask about it,” he allows which is a lot more than she normally gets from him, and that’s enough to make her grin the whole walk back to Merlin’s place.

Truthfully, Radiant Garden has made huge strides over the last few months. People are slowly moving back into the restored homes and buildings surrounding the castle, which is starting to look like a livable place instead of the broken, haunted shell it used to be. Except the only people staying in it are a scientist-looking dude Yuffie doesn’t recognize and two beefy guys in dark uniforms she vaguely remembers from her childhood memories of the place. Neither of the big guys talk much and the nerdy guy mostly stays indoors doing what she imagines are nerdy things, but she knows Cid and Squall have been in there once or twice to talk about… whatever. Computer stuff, probably, because Squall’s mentioned Ansem’s old computer still works in there.

Personally, Yuffie prefers throwing stuff. She’s pretty good at it and that’s her job most of the time. She does other things sometimes though, like helping Aerith out with the flowers she’s planted around town.

“I can’t even keep a houseplant alive,” Yuffie says as she watches Aerith dig around in the dirt of the castle gardens, ignoring the stains on her pink dress. “Don’t you get tired taking care of all these flowers by yourself?”

“It can’t very well be called Radiant Garden without any gardens.”

“Guess that’s true enough.”

Yuffie crouches down beside her, handing her a trowel when she asks for it or pulling weeds when she points them out.

They’re pretty quiet after that. Yuffie helps Aerith work but she also watches her in her element, the way the flowers turn their faces up to greet her. Aerith doesn’t come with Yuffie and Squall on patrol even though Yuffie knows she can conjure up a nasty -aga spell when she wants to. But she sees now that Aerith prefers to use her magic in other ways, like a healing touch on fresh wounds, or coaxing plants out of the soft earth.

“Watera,” Aerith says, and droplets of water condense in the air and pitter patter over the flower beds.

Awed, Yuffie says, “Well hey, that’s convenient.”

“I’ve talked to Cid about fixing the sprinkler system out here, but until then, it’s not so difficult to take care of it myself.”

“You should teach me how to do that so I can make it rain over Cid’s head whenever I want.”

“Cid would definitely know I was the one who taught you that and he’d never forgive me.” She laughs and nudges Yuffie towards the garden exit. “Now come on, let’s wash up and get lunch.”

At the gate stands one of the uniformed men, the one with short brown hair, and he opens it for them when they approach.

“Thank you, Aeleus,” Aerith says with a smile that he nods curtly at.

Once they’ve left the castle grounds, Yuffie asks, “You know his name? I’ve never even heard him talk before.”

“He’s usually around whenever I tend to the gardens. He’s helped me wheel in the fertilizer a few times.”

“Huh.” Yuffie looks back towards the gate, and Aeleus has disappeared somewhere deeper within the castle. “You know, I don’t even remember when these guys arrived. They weren’t here when Sora was around.”

“I’m not certain either,” Aerith muses with a finger to her chin. “But I think they mean well.”

Yuffie doesn’t feel so sure. They’ve stayed cooped up in that castle this whole time while the Restoration Committee and the rest of the town have been working their butts off putting this place back together again. She hasn’t seen any of them help rebuild the town walls, clear debris from buildings, or take out any of the Heartless except the ones that get a little too close to the castle doors for comfort. Cid sits at his computer all day too but at least she can see the Claymore doing its job better and better because of it.

“Don’t make that face, Yuffie.”

“What face?”

“You know.” Aerith points at the downward curve of Yuffie’s mouth, the way she wrinkles her nose. “Squall Frown #7.”

Yuffie gasps. “No way, was I doing the ‘bad smell’ frown?”

“You certainly were.” Aerith tugs her along. “Maybe lunch will make you feel better.”

Yuffie’s always been a strong believer in food fixing everything, so she lets Aerith lead her to one her favorite food stalls in Castle Town. But she doesn’t think slurping noodles—even really, really good noodles—is enough to quash her curiosity about the mysterious people in the castle. She can’t exactly bang on their door and demand to know what their deal is. Well she can, but Aerith told her a long time ago to stop doing that to people.

“No frowning, remember?” Aerith sing-songs, dropping a truly dangerous amount of chili paste into her soup.

“Yeah, yeah,” Yuffie says. She decides being broody won’t help anything and goes back to inhaling her noodles, because they really are pretty dang good.

* * *

There’s still no word from Sora.

Everyone else seems content to go about their business, but it doesn’t stop bothering Yuffie. Part of her wants to grab someone by the shoulders and scream at them, “If something’s wrong with Sora then all the words are in danger!” but even she knows that would be a little too much.

But Sora’s their _friend_. Donald and Goofy, too. She gets the importance of what they’re doing here, but it still feels wrong to move on without knowing for sure what’s happened to them. But it’s not like she has any means of contacting Sora. They haven’t seen his other friends Riku and Kairi either, or King Mickey, and there aren’t any other options available to her.

So she keeps going. She fights Heartless, annoys Cid, and watches the sky every day for their gummi ship to reappear.

“ _Achoo_! Dang it.”

The nights in Radiant Garden bring a surprising chill. Yuffie scrubs at her freezing nose and regrets leaving her pack of tissues back home. Her fingers wrapped around her shuriken are a little numb with cold, but the Restoration Committee can’t leave the streets unguarded.

Street lamps cast feeble light along the walkways winding around the castle perimeter, and Yuffie walks beneath their guiding light while keeping an eye out for any movement in the shadows. Her nose runs a little and she sniffs. She’ll be pissed if she ends up coming down with a cold.

She glances up at the night sky, glittering with stars. She hopes somewhere out there, Sora is looking at the same ones. Surely he’s doing something much cooler and more epic than sniffling in the cold on an empty street.

“You better be safe out there,” she murmurs.

Something scuffles behind her.

Yuffie whips around, brandishing her weapon. She expects to see a Soldier, a Nocturn, anything.

There’s nothing.

The street is still empty, silent except for the low chatter from the surrounding houses.

She lowers her shuriken. “Huh.”

Figuring it was the wind, she turns, rounds the corner of the next building, and promptly walks into someone.

“Gah!”

“Oh—”

Papers and books go flying. In the middle of the fluttering pages is a boy with silver hair long enough to curtain a good portion of his face.

“Aw jeez.” Yuffie immediately drops down to pick things up. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“No, no, it’s alright. I should have paid more attention as well.”

They clean up the mess together, gathering the books and papers into a neat pile that she hands back to him.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.” Yuffie pauses when she notices his white lab coat, and something in her head clicks. “Wait a second,” she says, “aren’t you the guy that works up there?” She jerks her thumb at the castle behind her, looming over the rest of the town.

He blinks. “Yes, that’s me. I’m Ienzo.”

Ienzo bows a little, but has to quickly slap a hand over the pile in his arms before it falls over.

“Yuffie.” She gestures at herself unceremoniously. “I haven’t seen you out and about much.”

“Ah, I have a lot of research keeping me busy. But tonight I needed to pick up a delivery.”

“You sure picked a heck of a time to do that.” She raises an eyebrow. “It’s dangerous to walk around alone at this time of night, you know.”

“Yes,” he says, fidgeting with the books in his hands. “I’m aware. I apologize for any disturbance I caused but I will do my best to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

Yuffie squints at him, still feeling unconvinced, but she doesn’t really care enough to press him as long as he goes back inside after this.

“Fine,” she says. “But I’ll walk you back. The castle gate’s not far.”

“No need to trouble yourself,” Ienzo says, “I’m certain I can make it there on my—”

A screech echoes through the street.

Yuffie turns to see a long-limbed, antennaed creature morph into existence from beyond the street lamps, with more creatures budding behind it. Yellow eyes blink open in the shadows cast by the surrounding buildings and swell into shapes she recognizes all too well.

What a perfect time for the Heartless to show their ugly faces.

Falling into an attack stance, she readies her shuriken and asks Ienzo, “Can you fight?”

He doesn’t panic; just looks grim and says a little nervously, “I know some spells. But there’s too many of them. Aeleus and Dilan are patrolling nearby, we should join them.”

Yuffie does a quick head count of their enemies, lurching towards them on all sides, and realizes he’s right.

She says, “Okay, fine, whatever. Let’s just hurry,” and pushes him to run.

As they tear down the street, she throws her shuriken and takes out a few Heartless behind them, but others spring up in their place. She catches her shuriken then lobs it again a few meters ahead where more block their path.

“Ugh, get out of the way!” she hisses. She kicks one of the Shadows in the face and feels satisfaction at the way it bursts into smoke. “Can’t you put that stuff down?” She looks pointedly at the books and papers in Ienzo’s arms.

“No!” He clutches them possessively. “They’re important, I can’t allow the Heartless to destroy them!”

“ _Really_?” God, there’s no time to argue about it now, not with the Heartless gaining on them.

They sprint around a corner and finally, far ahead of them, are two uniformed figures not far from the castle gates.

“Aeleus! Dilan!” Ienzo calls out, making the figures turn towards them. “Trouble!”

“Could use a hand over here!” Yuffie fires throwing stars as quickly as she can and worries about the dwindling number of them in her pack.

Aeleus hurries to Ienzo and draws his axe. “Stand back.”

Yuffie assumes the one with long hair must be Dilan, and he clutches a menacing-looking lance in his hand. He and Aeleus run up beside her.

“Uh, hey, nice to meet you.” She nods awkwardly at them. “You guys used to a fight?”

Dilan twirls his lance, lamplight glinting off its sharp edges. “These days, aren’t we all?”

Yuffie shrugs. “Guess I can’t argue with that.”

Dilan takes out a few Heartless in one swing and she immediately feels glad they’re on the same side, even if his sideburns are weird.

Aeleus and Dilan fight beside each other like they’ve done it forever. It’s true that these days most people she meets have some modicum of fighting experience purely by necessity, but it’s clear to her that these two have had more practice at it than most. If she remembers after all this is over, she might ask them about it, but she has to focus on not getting her heart clawed out first.

Ienzo conjures Blizzara spells and freezes several Heartless in place for Aeleus to come and shatter to pieces with his axe. Dilan moves quickly for such a tall guy and slashes through the Heartless with his lance. But Yuffie is no slowpoke either. She weaves through the black, writhing masses, twirling her shuriken, taking out Heartless until their numbers begin to dwindle.

“Ienzo, last one’s heading your way!” Dilan says, too far away to catch the Neoshadow darting in Ienzo’s direction.

Ienzo scrunches his face in concentration but only a pitiful spark sputters out of his fingertips.

The Heartless quickens, its claws outstretched.

Yuffie’s shuriken sails from her hand, cleaving through the Heartless hard enough to send it into the air before it bursts, wisps of black fading into the night sky.

The shuriken whirls back into her palm like it always does, and Yuffie does a little spin with her fingers to show off.

She makes her way to Ienzo, picking up a few fallen munny off the ground as she does. The Heartless sure have a weird habit of hoarding these things.

“Bad time to run out of mana, huh?” she says to him. Aeleus and Dilan run over too, and Aeleus holds out an ether.

Ienzo takes it and says, “Thank you.” Then to Yuffie, “And thank you, as well. ”

“No problem. Your books alright?”

He huffs a little laugh and bends down to pick up the books and papers he’d set on the ground during the fight. “Yes. All accounted for.”

Yuffie nods and catches the embossed title of the tome atop the pile. “ _The Digitalization Capabilities of Human Emotions_? Sounds like complicated stuff.”

“It is. My colleagues are dealing with complicated issues and are in desperate need of information like this.”

“Sure.” She scratches the back of her head. “What kind of folks need to know that stuff anyway?”

Ienzo glances up and down the street, in a furtive way that makes her feel kind of suspicious.

“I assume you’re part of the Restoration Committee, yes?” he says.

“Ienzo...” Dilan warns.

Yuffie raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? So?”

“Then you’re familiar with the Keyblade wielder.”

Her eyes widen. “Are you talking about Sora?”

Ienzo’s face brightens. “Ah, so you do know him.”

“Know him? I haven’t heard from him in months!”

Yuffie shoots her hands out to clutch Ienzo by the shoulders, which makes him, Aeleus, and Dilan all jump in alarm. But she just can’t help it.

“Please, tell me!” she begs, shaking him. “Where is he? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine!” Ienzo tells her, startled. “He’s currently travelling the worlds to train, but he is definitely alright.”

“What about Donald? And Goofy?”

“Last I saw, they were all fine. I just spoke to them recently.”

She stares at him as the words sink in. Ienzo waits for her to say something, looking increasingly uncomfortable with her silence. She sucks in a breath and holds it in her lungs.

They’re okay. They’re really okay.

She exhales the biggest sigh of relief she has ever done in her entire life.

“Oh thank goodness,” she says, finally letting go of Ienzo. He looks a little ruffled but she’s too happy about this news to care.

“You know what?” she says, pointing at the three of them. “You guys are alright.”

“I—Thank you?” Ienzo says uncertainly.

Aeleus looks at Dilan who only gives a shrug.

“Is that what you guys have been up to in there, researching stuff for Sora?”

“Yes.” Ienzo runs a hand over the cover of the book. “These were delivered from King Mickey’s personal library. I’m sure the information contained within is invaluable.”

She nods, sniffs when she feels her runny nose coming back now that the adrenaline from the fight is wearing off. “You guys have been pretty secretive up in there, you know?”

“We’re… a little unused to being back here,” Ienzo says haltingly, and Yuffie senses a story hidden deeper in there. But everyone’s got their own path they took after the fall of Radiant Garden, and she’s not going to butt in if they’re not ready to share.

“You’re pretty handy in a fight though. If you ever want to help out the Restoration efforts, I could maybe let you tag along.”

She flexes her bicep even though any muscle there is mostly hidden beneath her thick jacket. Then there’s a telltale tickle in her nose, and she gives a huge, wet sneeze. “ _Ugh_ , screw the cold!”

Aeleus digs in his pocket and produces a clean white handkerchief.

He holds it out to her and says, “We’d like to help.”

Yuffie blinks before tentatively taking it. She looks up at where he towers over her, and even if his face is kind of severe she can see now why Aerith believes he’s a good guy; why she thinks so of all of them.

“Thanks, dude.” She blows her nose loudly into the handkerchief.

Aeleus doesn’t even complain, which is another point in Yuffie’s book.

* * *

The next morning Merlin announces he’s leaving Radiant Garden to train Kairi and Lea as Keyblade wielders by order of Master Yen Sid.

In addition, he has also received word that Sora is furthering his training to be a Keyblade Master, and though it’s unlikely that he’ll have time to visit, they can rest assured he made it through his confrontation with Organization XIII.

Cid says, “I told you there weren’t nothing to worry about,” and Yuffie doesn’t even get annoyed about it. He was right, after all.

She almost laughs—if she had been patient a day longer she would have finally gotten the answers she’s been dying for. But the way things worked out isn’t all that bad. It was about time she met Ienzo, Aeleus, and Dilan properly, if fighting Heartless together in the dead of night constitutes a proper introduction.

And so the Restoration continues. They finally get the fountains working in the town square, and even though the Fountain Court will still take more time to fix, Yuffie appreciates watching the waters mist and catch the colors of the sunlight, while the flowers Aerith planted sway in full bloom. The surrounding walls aren’t crumbling messes anymore after the determined work of the construction crew. Squall even rolled up his sleeves to help out during free moments between patrols, and the Claymore has been resilient in keeping the Heartless from breaking it all back down. Aeleus and Dilan’s addition to the patrols and Ienzo’s assistance to Cid certainly played a part in it.

All the months of building and fighting have finally come together to make something that truly feels like home again. Even if Yuffie isn’t out there traveling the worlds and fighting a greater battle, the work they’ve been doing here doesn’t feel so small anymore. The people of Radiant Garden are pretty dang heroic in their own way.

The only thing that would make it perfect is if Sora could see it all somehow.

There’s a knock on their door one afternoon while Cid finishes throwing together his Cid Special for lunch. Yuffie goes over to answer it since Squall is busy chopping things Cid tells him to and Aerith is busy keeping Cid from using anything too heinous for human taste buds.

When she opens it, Ienzo is there with Aeleus and Dilan behind him and a small box in his hands.

“Ienzo!” she says, opening the door wider for them to step inside. “‘Sup.”

“Ah, yes, what is up,” he says and enters. “Are you busy?”

She waves a hand. “I’m not doing anything.”

“We know,” Cid says loudly from the kitchen, and Yuffie sticks her tongue out at him. “Hey, one of you big guys wanna help? I’m gonna need to double this pot if y’all are staying to eat.”

Aeleus wanders over. Dilan gets a whiff of what’s cooking and grimaces as he says, “That won’t be neces—”

“Of course they’ll stay!” Yuffie claps him heartily on the back and his expression sours further.

“Sure,” Ienzo says, clearing his throat. “But first...”

He sets the box he brought on the table and lifts the lid.

She leans in to look. “What the heck is that?”

Ienzo straightens somewhat proudly. “A gummiphone.”

“Gummi what?”

“A device you can use to communicate.” He picks up the rectangular device with a screen the size of his hand. He presses the button at the bottom, where a familiar mouse-like symbol is emblazoned. The screen lights up.

“Whoa!”

“You can write notes, send messages, or call someone if you have the number associated with the gummiphone. You can even take pictures.”

“No way!” Yuffie makes grabby hands. “Let me try!”

Ienzo taps the screen a couple times before handing it to her.

“Ah! Squall, look! The camera can face you!”

Yuffie laughs in amazement at the image of herself on-screen, the rest of the room behind her. Through it, she sees Squall look confusedly at her from the kitchen counter.

“Why would you need a camera that faces backwards?” he says.

“It’s helpful for taking photos of yourself without needing someone else to do it for you. And you can see how the background looks as well,” Ienzo explains. “Sora has already sent, er… a number of them.”

Yuffie stops in the middle of taking a bunch of pics of Squall—or Squall raising his hand to try and cover the camera—and asks, “Sora has one?”

“Yes, I’ve already inputted his number into this one. It’s for all of you.”

“You’re giving this to us?” She stares at Ienzo incredulously.

He nods. “I apologize that we can only spare one at the moment, but I thought you’d like a way of contacting him. I understand that he hasn’t been by Radiant Garden in a long time. Plus, I have one as well and it seemed prudent to streamline communication between your base of operations and ours, in order to facilitate both restoration and research efforts—”

“Yo, Cid! Ienzo says we can talk through this thing!” Yuffie waves the phone at Cid for him to see while Ienzo looks irked at the interruption.

“That so?” Cid approaches the table with his now finished pot of stew, or whatever dish his strange concoction qualifies as. It lands with a heavy _thunk_ on the tabletop.

“You guys come in for a picture, I’m gonna send one to Sora.” She lifts the phone in the air with the screen facing her, tilting it in different directions to try and get everyone to fit. She notices Ienzo, Aeleus, and Dilan inching out of frame, and she rounds on them. “Hey, where are you going?”

“Oh,” Ienzo says, “I didn’t think—”

“I meant _everyone_. Sora’ll want to see all his friends.”

Ienzo glances at the other two to gauge their reaction, and when they only shrug in return, the corners of his mouth quirk into a wry smile, and they join the others gathered for the picture.

Squall furrows his brow as he looks into the camera, awkwardly trying to figure out how to stand, and Aerith smiles cheerily while Aeleus looms in the background. Dilan does a peace sign with an otherwise stoic face and Cid lifts up a spoonful of stew as if to show Sora what he’s missing. Ienzo tucks a bit of his long hair out of his face and smiles.

Yuffie laughs. They’re such a weird bunch.

She grins and snaps the picture.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!


End file.
